Monday, July 15, 2013

Elder Inman Letter July 15, 2013

Yet another week down.

Wow. I'm moving up on 6 months of being out. Can you believe that? It's getting faster and faster!

Did a lot of tedious things this week. Like re-aligning the truck and getting a replacement tire. Lots of online work went on as well. But it a very re-warding week, I was able to use the Priesthood quite a bit.

Tuesday, we went over to Dillon's (our investigator) girlfriend's house who is in our ward to play some games with them. Dillon hasn't been progressing and has been taking our discussions more for his girlfriend rather than for himself. So we decided to slow down and just be his friend. His girlfriend was adopted from Haitii a long with probably about 7 others from different families. One of the adopted kids is 6 months old, and has a breathing tube in his neck. The baby got really sick all the sudden and was in pain. We cleared off the island in the kitchen and put the baby there. We gave a healing blessing to which I anointed and the father sealed. Really opened my eyes to give blessing to such a young child. Later that night we got a call from the hospital to go give a blessing to a man who had hit a deer while on a motorcycle. He wasn't wearing a helmet. Interestingly enough, he broke almost every bone in his body it looked like, but absolutely no head damage. I can't imagine what it would be like to hit a deer...on a motorcycle. From there I went and picked up my dry-cleaning $26 later -__-

Wednesday was neat because we got to teach someone we didn't think we would be able to. A girl named Tannah in our ward, has helped us out with so many different things. She has a brother who is not a member and she really worries about him. So, we told her to text us whenever he was randomly home, and we would just "show up." :) So we did! He was really kind of stand-offish at first but we talked to him about hunting for an hour or so and convinced him to give us his number to take us craw-dad catching :) Splits was later that night, and Elder Bonaro went to go teach another Portuguese lesson. I went to go see Kyle and moved yet 2 more (full) refrigerators. What was cool though, is that Kyle is a flat out genius. Almost to smart to function. He graduated in computer science and is actually going to build a server/database for the entire mission and help create programs to make missionary numbers and reports easier to run. What sold him is that this would give him awesome job experience and a recommendation from President Mecham who was CEO of either Zion's bank or Deseret Bank. President wants to talk to him about maybe even doing a service mission here just doing the IT work for the mission. Hope that will work! When I came back Elder Bonaro was so swollen I couldn't stop laughing! He blew up like a puffer fish and said he must have ate something he's allergic too. So funny.

Other cool things this week, we got to work quite a bit with Eliza Cannell, who has been struggling with so many things, particularly Word of Wisdom things. She is trying SO hard to quite smoking, drinking, coffee, and other things and her heart is totally there. She is going to all the programs offered by the church and making every effort to be reactivated. She asked Elder Bonaro and I if we could come dedicate her home, because she feels a pretty negative/evil influence there. So the both of us and Elder Hopkins (senior missionary) came to her house and Elder Hopkins did that actual blessing...very powerful. Elder Hopkins stated his authority and ours, with the four of us kneeling and cast out all evil in the home and commanded them not to return. Pretty awesome.

Bishop was holding a BBQ later that night, so we met with Eliza again about an hour before it started to start the "smoke-free program" with her as well. She wasn't entirely ready for it but she is starting it tomorrow (the 16th)! What's cool about that, is part of the program entails no tea, coffee, or tobacco over the course of the 7 day program WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Doing so, you will inevitably fail the program. Eliza had previously tried to stop coffee cold turkey and revived horrible migraines. Thank goodness for the spirit, or I would have had nothing to say to her. I told her to buy her favorite CAFFEINATED soda and drink it every morning instead of the coffee. I promised her that if she did so for at least this week, she would not receive one migraine. And the Spirit confirmed that :)

Saturday. One of the funniest days of my mission. We did our studies at the church with one of the pre-missionaries because he wanted to practice role-playing. When we came home from lunch, Elder Issacson and Elder Schramm were still there. Elder Issacson had bought 6 pounds of gummy bears from Costco, the same day I did. After about a pound, they all taste the same. So we were finding uses for the remaining 5 pounds. Throwing them, catching them in our mouth, etc. Well, Elder Schramm thought it would be a great idea to make a slingshot out of the elastic band the MTC gives missionaries for exercise. After a few trial runs at the wall and a few scatter shots, Elder Bonaro had the idea that we should try hitting a person. We held both sides and Elder Schramm pulled back...Elder Issacson now has a swollen eye in the shape of a gummy bear! Hahahahahaha I was crying laughing, We felt bad but even Issacson was laughing. Right afterward, we were strolling through the park and came across this group dressed in med-evil costumes fighting. Apparently, there is such a thing as "LARPing" which stands for "Live Action Roleplay." It's a league where you rank in classes of warrior or assassin's and the kings live in Salt Lake...

Well that was our week, unfortunately not a lot of exciting things missionary wise. Doing a lot of computer work for the mission. Thank you everyone for the letters! I hit a new record today of getting 7 letters and a package in one day! Thanks for the pictures Torie and Jesse and thanks for the ties and shirts mom!

Spiritual Thought:

Something in "Jesus the Christ" blew my mind the other day! It talks about Lehi and his family, and the actual route they took. I have always assumed that the crossed the Mediterranean and then the Atlantic, landing in Brazil or somewhere. Jesus the Christ says that they actually went Eastward over the Arabian sea, then the INDIAN OCEAN, the SOUTH PACIFIC, and landed on the WEST coast of South America! And worked their way upward. Totally blew my mind! I can't remember the page number but it's probably around the 60's/70's ish.